


Assuredly This

by Cheloya



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Old, imported. Remus does his best to keep things interesting.





	Assuredly This

Sirius was convinced it was something Moony did just to annoy him, this throwing out of random quotes of bits of Muggle literature and just smiling mysteriously until Sirius had scratched through enough bloody books to locate (usually with an excited ink-spatter and a "HAH!" that got him banished from the library) the correct response to whatever line he'd been quoted. With the way Remus loved to lecture him and James on topics ranging from the Merperson Treaty of 1706 all the way to Why You Shouldn't Put That Dungbomb Where I Know You're Going to Put It, you'd think he'd just give in and explain it, with all the wheedling time Sirius usually put in before getting down to business and raiding Moony's collection of favourite books (which took up half his trunk; Sirius was bloody glad of Moony's preternatural strength, because otherwise they all might have croaked, trying to get that thing up into the luggage rack every year).

This time it had been something about a whale, and Sirius had taken great pleasure in finishing the phrase, _if you should write a fable for little fishes_ before he'd stabbed his finger down on the middle of Remus' book, prompting a small but violent flail about the fate of those who crack spines.

"Why," he demanded, "do you keep making me do things? Do you like making me feel like a tit? I promise, I do it by myself all the time without your help."

And Remus smiled and said, "Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?" and went back to his book like that was the end of it. And for a few months, it was, because there were exams in the middle and it was much harder to figure out where to start when Moony didn't have the book in his immediate collection. Who bit thumbs, anyway? Thumb- _nails_ , yes, Sirius could understand that, but actual thumbs? Sounded like a bit of a dubious past-time, if you asked him, and Sirius asked himself quite frequently, so when he eventually went back to Moony, he was already feeling a little bit confused about thumbs and the importance thereof.

"I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb, sir. Now, what the bollocks is this all about?"

Remus added a flourish to the first letter of his probably-two-hundredth paragraph on the theory of modern numerology - a bit of a girly flourish, Sirius thought - and shrugged one shoulder, offhand. "I like seeing you try a bit," he said. "You don't, you know. Not really."

Sirius might have protested, if Remus hadn't been right. So what he said instead was, "So? What's wrong with not trying?"

Moony brushed a hand back through his hair, exasperation in his eyes. "Well," he started, and frowned. "How... I mean, what does anything really mean, unless you try for it? If you haven't gone out of your way to, to get something, then why should it mean anything to you?"

Sirius stared at him for a bit, then leaned forward to poke his forehead, above and between his eyes.

"You're really five hundred, aren't you? You can tell me. I'll only want to know if you can still get it u--"

"I am not," Remus told him drily, "five hundred, and I know perfectly well what you'd be asking me if I was." He pulled his scroll closer and dipped his quill with purpose. "Do bugger off. Some of us have marks to uphold."

Which was usually Sirius' cue to stand on his head, or lick someone's cheek, or make Peter drink ink accidentally-on-purpose, but for reasons he wasn't quite ready to examine yet, he was a little disappointed that his creative thoughts in the area of thumbs hadn't manifested. So he said, "Well, it's bloody disappointing when I try and all I get is another hurdle to jump."

Remus' lips twitched in what might've been the beginnings of a smirk, but he didn't look up from his parchment. "Makes you try harder to get what you want, though, doesn't it?" he prompted expectantly, and kicked lightly at Sirius' ankle under the table. The dark-haired boy sighed dramatically, and slumped on the tabletop, causing the ink bottle to wobble threateningly and Remus to suppress a sigh of his own. His 'y' looked more like a 'q', now.

"I bite my bloody thumb at you," Sirius informed him, sideways, rich messy colour spilling into his eyes. Remus corrected the mistake with a light flick of his wand, and went back to his essay, absently sorting through texts in his head for a new line to torture Sirius with.

"Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew," he quoted, and Sirius turned his face deskward to beat it once, twice, with a groan.

Eventually, he reached for Remus' favourite book of verse.


End file.
